


Sanctuary

by overtture



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Canon Compliant, Family Feels, Foreshadowing, Gen, Introspection, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Minor Violence, Mother-Son Relationship, Pre-Canon, Short One Shot, ask to tag, eva's a witch but dont worry about that, i gave them a last name so eva could do the Mom Thing, i love suffering, or: dantes an idiot, sparda might b bug dad but he's also cat dad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-08-12 02:22:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20126572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/overtture/pseuds/overtture
Summary: They’ve been identical for years now, their whole lives. They did everything together, shared every secret, trained in the same style, had the same tastes. They were two halves of a greater whole together and they loved being that way. Until now, apparently.Dante just wishes he’d gotten the memo.[Or, the first time Vergil purposefully sweeps his hair back, Dante cries.]





	Sanctuary

**Author's Note:**

> i dont really have a set age for the twins in this other than 'young' so take that however you will! babys first dmc fic, yeehaw! this fandom's right up my alley either way, because i love suffering and these idiots take a BEATING in normal canon so fic has the potential to get BUCKWILD, they really only get the short end of the stick and thats v sexie of them. thanks for yr services, dmc cast! anyway, i just wanted to write something short & not-so-sweet to add a little salt to the general wound that is the backstory and this quick thing was born
> 
> as usual, i'll come back and give this a look-over later, but enjoy nonetheless!

It’s not something he noticed at first.

Their hair did funny things through the night and it was usually the first thing they did, brushing it out. It was either that or their father’s need to groom them with lanky, occasionally sharp fingers through their hair when he tries to mimic their mother but usually resorting to the rough drag of a sandpaper tongue despite their protests.

The first day, their father is out on a mission so Dante can’t quite blame Vergil for taking the opportunity to shake off sleep a little slower. Their father never seemed to rest much, every minute of lazing being a minute there was something to do, and as much energy as they both had, they were growing boys who liked to sleep in. 

The first day, Vergil wakes up with a heavy yawn Dante feels in his bones and pushes a clammy hand through his hair to force it back as it clusters in front of his face, slowly but surely collecting himself before rolling out of bed, shuffling out of the room and towards the kitchen to the smell of pancakes and juice.

Dante doesn’t really notice or care at the time. He’d woken up early for pancakes but was told he wouldn’t have any strawberries if he didn’t finish his math homework first. It’s not until breakfast has come and gone with completed homework proudly presented to his mother and lunch has passed, that he realizes Vergil never did brush his hair back out.

“Vergil,” he begins, sorting through the box of toy weapons, locating the nun-chucks before quickly retreating into the shade of their large oak. 

His twin shifts at the base, briefly wiping his forehead before flipping the page of his book. “Dante,” he replies, in the same tone with an undercurrent that reads _ I’m in the middle of something and you’re annoying me. _

“Did you forget?” He asked, giving the weapon an experimental swing.

Vergil sighs, finally tilting the book down and lifting his eyes. “Forget what, Dante?”

“To brush your hair?”

“Oh,” Vergil says, eyebrows jumping in genuine surprise before scratching at his chin. “Yeah, I suppose I did. I don’t know, it’s kinda nice like this. Guess I forgot.”

“Oh,” Dante echoed.

“Yeah,” his gaze became suspicious, then, narrow-eyed. “Why?”

“Nothing, just… it’s different, I guess.”

“Different how?”

“Uh,” he hummed, giving the ‘chucks a stronger swing, under his arm and then out. Hey, he was getting the hang of it! “I dunno. Makes you look different? You look like me still, but also almost not?”

Dante missed his gaze becoming thoughtful, giving a whoop as he spun the nunchucks, under each arm, over his shoulders, throwing and catching it midair, and swinging it directly into his own face.

Vergil immediately broke into shrieking laughter as he yelped, crashing onto his back in the grass, holding his face. By the time the pain dulls and the sweat (it’s _ sweat) _clears from his eyes, his brother is standing above him, a comforting shadow against the bright of midday. He smiles, something carefree and bright, and holds a hand out.

“You okay, Dante?” He choked out between a few muffled giggles. Dante took his hand and let himself be heaved up.

“Laugh it up, chuckles,” he pouted, giving the discarded nun-chucks a kick as Vergil only served to break into laughter again.

“Sor- sorry, it was just really funny. Would it make you feel better if we sparred?”

Surprise washed over him and he immediately packed down the slight flash of resentment tinged joy, because Vergil had just been busy, that’s all. He wasn’t purposefully distancing himself and Dante shouldn’t be surprised that he wanted to spar. Many things went beyond words and they knew that intimately.

In the end, they work together in sync as they always have, paralleled fighting as they go through their sets, fighting imaginary demons in dual action with little broken up between. Feeling the way Vergil shifts as they meet, back to back, dropping into a sharp crouch as his katana swept over his head to strike another opponent. The way, just as quickly, he bounced to his feet and they drove their swords forward before breaking apart and clashing between themselves, battle forgotten for the other. 

They’re tied by the time they're called back in. They always did, no matter how many times Vergil changed this or that, sweeping from a different angle, twisting his wrist just so, no matter how many times Dante feinted, inverted his grip. They always tied, both of them panting on the ground as their mother called for dinner, limbs tangled together as the sweat cooled to their skin, as the heat of their fight evaporated whatever issues troubled them, whatever tension there could be.

That afternoon, both of them flopped on their backs, chests heaving and muscles burning, Vergil turns his face towards Dante, twilight silhouetting him in blazing golds, and he knows everything will be alright.

Nothing mattered, because Dante had Vergil, they had each other, and Dante was sure that everything would be fine as long as they had each other. As long as they tied. As long as they were twins, souls in sync no matter how their minds differed.

* * *

His brother comes out the next morning as their father returns, hair just as it was the day before. Their father scoops Vergil up with a laughing purr to his squawks in displeasure, just as he always did. Dante just wants his strawberries. If his other was going to doom himself to grooming, that was his own doing.

“Wait!” His twin hollers, sudden and loud, startling him out of his juice. “It’s intentional!”

“Intentional, huh?”

“Yeah,” his brother smiles, excited to talk as he sneaks a few fruits from their father’s plate. “I’m trying out a new hairstyle, I guess! I want to look different from Dante.”

Oh, thinks Dante.

“Oh,” says their father.

There’s a moment of thick silence, the bravado slowly leaving his twin at the sudden pause in atmosphere. Just as he begins to look a little crestfallen and confused, their mother swoops in.

“Well, I think it’s a wonderful idea, Vergil! You do look rather dashing,” she smiled, running her own fingers through his hair to his vocal disgust. The moment, as short and meaningful as it was, passed.

Their parents laugh as his twin fixes his hair with a small, pleased smile.

Oh, thinks Dante.

* * *

_ Why would Vergil want to look different? _ He thinks to himself, kicking his legs as he lightly swings. There’s a breeze today, at least. Vergil has a new book, too. That seems like all he does now, read books and ignore him. That same resentment creeps up again, stronger now, and he forces it back to little progress. It claws up his spine, clenches in his fists, burns in his throat.

“Vergil,” he starts, stops, and then begins again. “Do you…”

“Spit it out, Dante.”

“Why do you want to look different from me?”

Vergil rolled his eyes and something sparks in his chest. “Hey, I’m serious!”

“Why do you think?” His brother asked, slowly, calmly in a way that just fans the spark.

“I don’t know!” Was it obvious? Was he overthinking it? Overreacting?

“Think. Why would I want to look different from you?” He sounds annoyed, now.

He didn’t know! He wasn’t Vergil, why would he want to look differently? Did he not like the way he looked? It was always Dante _ and Vergil. _Did… Dante do something wrong?

"Is it how we look?"

“Yeah, Dante, I hate your stupid mug. That’s why.”

Hurt flares up now, kindling, and the fire erupts, searing and raw. “You’ve never had a problem before now! I don’t get it, do I really look that bad?”

“That was sarcasm! I just don’t want to be _ you!” _

Dante jumped to his feet, gritting his teeth and clenching his fists tightly at his sides.

“I don’t get why you have to be such a jerk, Verge!”

“I’m not being a jerk,” his brother snapped, rising to his feet himself. “You’re being difficult for no reason!”

“Do you really want to look that different from me? What’s wrong with me that– that you don’t like me enough to try and change how you look?”

“Maybe I _ don’t _like you! You and I aren’t the same! We never will be! It’s a joke to think I’ll always want to look like you! I’m my own person! It’s not always about you, Dante!”

“Would that really be so bad, looking like me? It’s– it’s selfish of you!”

_ “I’m _ selfish? _ Me? _ You’re the one going off about this right now! I want to be more than _ Dante’s brother,” _ Vergil snarls. “I _ hate _ you, Dante! I hate _ being _ you!”

Dante snapped forward, taking tight hold of his shirt. His face felt hot, hotter than the summer around them, hotter than his anger. Hot trails, that burned down his face.

_ “Dante Alighieri!” _

He froze in place, dread washing cold down his spine, dousing the fire. He tilted his head and there she was, crossing the field in long strides. When he glances back, Vergil doesn’t look half as mad, staring at him with a closed expression, looking… upset? Confused? Frustrated?

“Dante Alighieri,” his mother repeats, furious in the way only mothers could be, “you let go of your brother_ right this instant!” _

Dante take a deep breath, lets go, and runs back home, weaving deftly around his mother’s reach and ignoring the calls of his name.

* * *

Dante slammed the door of their bedroom closed. 

His first instinct is the closet. The closet is safe, as it’s always been. There are no monsters in it, only a safe haven. It’s where his father took him when he was afraid of the dark, where his father taught him to be brave. He had tried to fit under Dante’s bed with him but was just on the side of too big and in the end his mother had been the one to crawl under to soothe him after thirty minutes of his father uselessly pawing for him.

But his father wasn’t here, so he had it to himself. He closed the doors firmly, nestling into the corner and willing himself to become one with the coats, counting his breaths and biting his lip raw.

“Dante?” Oh. It’s his mother, opening a door just a few inches to peer in, knees grass-stained. So she must’ve gone to Vergil first. “Dante, what are you doing in here? Your brother and I were worried sick.”

“The closet makes me brave,” he whispers eventually, pressing his face into his knees. “I need to be brave… ”

His mother coos softly and Dante bit the inside of his cheek. “Oh, Dante… What do you need to be brave about?”

“... Vergil hates me.”

“What?”

“Vergil hates me!” He can’t stop the sudden flood of sobs that burst forth, because it _ hurts _ . “He doesn’t want to look like me anymore! He doesn’t play with me anymore, or look like me, or _ anything! _He hates me, he doesn’t– he doesn’t want to be my brother no more!”

“Dante–"

“He changed his hair because he hates me,” he wailed, gripping his shorts so tight his fingers feel numb. “He hates me, hates me so much he doesn’t want to even look like me anymore!

“I don’t care about him,” he declared between hiccuping breaths. “I don’t want to be brothers with him no more.”

“You don’t mean that,” she said softly, gently, knowingly in a way that scathes.

“I’m serious,” he sniffled. “I’m really serious, Mama. I don’t want anything to do with him.”

His mother sighed, cracking open the door enough to crawl in next to him before closing it. She opened her arms and he hesitantly shifted into them as she began to hum.

"As you grow older, you both grow into yourselves, he'll want to become his own person. He doesn't hate you, he's just becoming more independent. He's always needed his space, to be himself," she tells him, quietly as she taps out a beat on his arm for him to breathe. “It's just more important to him now. You two weren’t going to be the same boy forever, Dante.”

“I know,” he sniffled, because he does, he wasn’t stupid, “but…”

“He’ll always be your twin, even if he doesn’t want to,” his mother said, pressing a kiss into the crown of his hair. “Always. Just as you’ll both always be brothers, even if you don’t love each other, though I can tell you he loves you more than anything. That bond… it’s something nobody can break, okay? You and him…”

She hesitated then, pausing for a few long seconds. “You’re both fated to be together. It’ll always be Vergil and Dante, Dante and Vergil, even if he changes and even if you. Do you understand?”

Dante wiped at his wet eyes with his wrist, nodding as her thumb wiped the trails of his tears away. She gave him a weak smile and stood, holding her hand out to him.

“Are you ready to leave? Maybe go talk to him? He's awfully worried.”

He closed his eyes, thought of Vergil, of bright summer days and sweet sugar, the smell of books and his crooked, toothy smile. He smiled himself, something small, and shuffled to his feet to take her hand.

She pressed another kiss to the top of his head, smiled a familiar grin at him, and led him out of the closet with her hand clasping his tightly.


End file.
